Russian troops advanced in eastern Ukraine on May 24, pounding key cities and aiming “to destroy everything there,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said, as Moscow signalled it was digging in for a long war against its neighbour.
Three months to the day since Russia launched its invasion, Zelensky mourned the thousands of Ukrainian men and women who have perished and he renewed calls for heavy weapons from foreign partners saying arms for Kyiv were “the best investment in stability in the world.”
Meanwhile, Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Russia was deliberately slowing its offensive in Ukraine to allow civilians to evacuate, while a top security official said Moscow was not “chasing deadlines” in the three-month-old war.
Read more news on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis here.
WASHINGTON
US to end Russia’s ability to pay international investors
The U.S. will close the last avenue for Russia to pay its billions in debt back to international investors on May 25, making a Russian default on its debts for the first time since the Bolshevik Revolution all but inevitable.
The Treasury Department said in a notification that it does not plan to renew the license that allowed Russia to keep paying its debtholders through American banks.
Since the first rounds of sanctions, the Treasury Department has given banks a license to process any dollar-denominated bond payments from Russia. That window expires at midnight May 25. – AP
DAVOS
Ukraine war may be beginning of third world war: Soros
Billionaire investor George Soros
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Billionaire investor George Soros has warned that Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine may be the beginning of the third world war and that the civilisation may not survive this war.
He also said that China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia‘s Vladimir Putin are tied together in an alliance that has no limits.
In his annual speech in Davos on Tuesday, Soros said the world must mobilise all resources to bring the war to an early end and the best and perhaps only way to preserve the civilisation is to defeat Putin as soon as possible. – PTI
MOSCOW
Russian lawmakers give initial approval to bill allowing foreign asset takeover
Russian lawmakers on Tuesday gave the first stamp of approval to a bill that would allow Russian entities to take over foreign companies that have left the market in opposition to Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, the government’s online portal showed.
Scores of foreign companies have announced temporary shutdowns of stores and factories in Russia or said they were leaving for good since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on February 24. – Reuters
MOSCOW
Saville says can’t go back to Russia after opposing Ukraine invasion
Australian tennis player Daria Saville says she can no longer return to Russia, the country of her birth, after protesting the military intervention in Ukraine.
Ms. Saville wore yellow and blue, the colours of Ukraine, at the Paris Open in March and urged Vladimir Putin to stop the war and the Russian army to return home in a post on social media.
“Already I can’t really go back to Russia, no,” she told Australian media at the French Open. – Reuters
KYIV
200 bodies found in basement in Mariupol’s ruins
Workers digging through the rubble of an apartment building in Mariupol found 200 bodies in the basement, Ukrainian authorities said on Tuesday, as more horrors come to light in the ruined city that has seen some of the worst suffering of the 3-month-old war.
The bodies were decomposing and the stench hung over the neighbourhood, said Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor. He did not say when they were discovered, but the sheer number of victims makes it one of the deadliest known attacks of the war. – AP
KYIV
Ukraine says Russia firing at border guards
The Ukrainian military said Russia has fired at Ukrainian border guards in the northeastern Sumy region in the latest of a series of alleged cross-border attacks over the past few weeks.
Military officials say observers on Tuesday night recorded seven shots from Russian territory toward the village of Boyaro-Lezhachi, most likely mortar fire.
The Ukrainian Operational Command North said on its Facebook post that eight other shots were heard Tuesday afternoon near a neighboring village. There were no reports of any deaths. – Reuters
